Hossenfelder's Razor

Dr. Copeland, I know it takes a lot of time to build these things -- but still -- wouldn't it make more sense to wait for the next really paradigm-breaking plausible theory? Wait for "the next Peter Higgs" , and then start building something?__Yes. I think Sabine Hossenfelder has a very valid point here. But the question is , at what stage in that process do you say, aha, now it's time to build a new circular collider?

Re: The Spin Cycle

With years of analysis still pending on LHC data and an upgrade underway, it seems premature to consider a bigger device. I find it odd that as the family of known dark matter particles grows (neutrinos, Z-boson , and now Higgs boson) so little, is made of it. In fact, at 57 sec. the video in the OP actually denies that LHC found dark matter!!!

Coincidentally, Hossenfelder sponsors talk-to-a physicist (a.k.a. talk-to-a-scientist, BackRe(action) ) for a fee. When I wrote to her, I was referred to a professor specializing in quantum gravity. I had three Skype sessions, in which I asked for substantive criticism of interval-time coordinates, pinholes, chronaxial spin and the resulting separational insufficiency (i.e. gravity) and there was very little. The questions he posed were followed by "That's a good answer." and "You should publish that." which I have.

P.S. Love the jokes, doogles!! There's understandably no like button on the Laughter thread but if there was I'm sure you'd be getting top honors.

The talk in this thread has been about LHCLHC cannot solve quantum wave-particle duality

I’ve had my own pet theory about this for quite awhile now: or thought that “light” was possibly a burst or stream of photon particles leaving the electron, that then proceeded to travel in a wavelike pattern(or “quantum wave-particle duality” as this is called today)

Re: Dim Wit?

ronjanec wrote:“light” was possibly a burst or stream of photon particles leaving the electron, that then proceeded to travel in a wavelike pattern

You seem to be striving toward a theory of virtual photons, which are part of quantum field theory. Much use is made of them in Feynman diagrams. Since I don't adhere to massless particles of real or virtual types, I wouldn't be much help.

Today, sophisticated light sources are so dim that they can send light quanta one-at-a-time through interference experiments. The accumulating patterns emerge exactly according to predictions, as if photons interfere with themselves. One might argue this as a single real photon being comprised by multiple virtual photons.

Re: Hossenfelder's Razor

The one-at-a-time experiments with light are some of the best evidence I know of that light is strictly a wave phenomenon and never a particle. Photon theory does nothing but add confusion to our understanding of light so it is best forgotten.

Dirac’s three polarizer experiment was once thought to be evidence for the transformation of light quanta, “photons” into virtual photons and then back into visible photons.

The same three polarizer experiment was also considered by Dirac to be a demonstration of quantum particle superposition but his explanation also appears to no longer be popular.

One of my favorite explanations for the three polarizer experiment is that it involves destructive interference of light waves by two filters and the prevention of destructive interference by the third polarizer in the center. Destructive interference is a sort of classical version of superposition but not the same.

Another possibility is that the center polarizer rotates the polarization of light passing through the first filter so it can pass through the third. A strange observation is that the addition of a fourth polarizer at a different angle allows even more light to pass through the filters.

Re: Emissions, Omissions & Denials

Still, if the folks at LHC can't recognize what their toy has found then they aren't ready for a bigger toy. I mean it's one thing to overlook the fact that the Higgs boson (H0) is dark matter (specifically a WIMP: weakly-interacting massive particle) but quite another to deny that that's what LHC found. Several times in that video, Dr. Copland said the LHC failed to find dark matter. That's just not correct!

H0 is fundamentally electrically neutral (like a neutrino, not a neutral composite like a neutron). Its also massive and it participates in weak interaction, as is clear from the fact it decays in about 1.6 x 10-22 sec. Interestingly, the H0 decay products include a pair of photons (if you believe in them) but this is a pair creation phenomenon rather than an EM interaction. It ends up as two muon/anti-muon pairs or something else that's net electrically neutral. The photons are mostly "implied" by these products.

Of course, it would be nice if they had found a more stable WIMP but one wonders if they'd know it if they had.